The Editors. "The 2012 Calendar of the Historical Research Association (HFDR)." Volk auf dem Weg, December 2011, 47.

Translation from the original German-language text to American English is provided by Alex Herzog, Boulder, CO.

Every year since 2000, HFDR has been publishing its pictorial wall calendar, in which it has offered exciting insights into the German Russian cultural history. In the calendar for 2012, which contains the traditional calendar pages, the reader will once again find portraits of outstanding German Russian personalities as well as a number of articles which again present German settlement areas and various phases of German Russian history.

In the introduction, Michael Wanner, chair of the HFDR, takes us back to the manifestos and decrees that proved to be so fateful for the development of our ethnic group in Russia, as well as for its downfall.

The editorial article by Jonan Kampen deals with the current status as well as the future of the Association’s calendar.

Other topics cover the following:

The history of Alexandersdorf in the Caucasus (by Rita Laubhahn),

Finding a home in the church ( Dr. Alexander Hoffmann and Nina Paulsen),

Borodino (1812) and the Germans (Reinhold Uhlmann),

German church life on Crimea (Hilda Riss),

The “good old days” on the Dnieper (in Chortitza) (Johann Kampen),

The farmers’ uprising of 1921 in Mariental on the Volga (Albert Obholz),

The legendary kolchos [collective farm] manager Jakob Gering, and “Thirty Years of kolchos in the

Kazakh SSR,”

The Russian humanist and author of enlightenment Alexander Herzen, on the occasion of his 200th birthday.

Toward the end one can find additional challenges for research presented by Lilly Buchholz-Rimer and Horst Bredemayer, all concentrating on the topic “Volga Germans workers in Central Poland, 1850 – 1900.”

This calendar for 2012, as have the others in the past, will for years to come serve many readers as a reference source. And it is clearly a wonderful gift. Here’s a good piece of advice for local chapters of the Landsmannschaft: the calendar can be a fine gift in appreciation for work by various loyal volunteers.

[The calendar is available from the GRHC web site.]

Our appreciation is extended to Alex Herzog for translating and to Dr. Nancy A. Herzog for editing this article.

Permission
to use any images from the GRHC website may be requested
by contacting Michael
M. Miller